Game Reviews

Imps in Tokyo

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iOS
| Imps In Tokyo
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Imps in Tokyo
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iOS
| Imps In Tokyo

Imps in Tokyo is a gorgeous looking one-finger arcade game that sees you darting across cartoon skies, grabbing dreams before they're snatched away by evil spirits.

And it's not as flighty as it might appear at first glance. There's a surprising challenge here, and swooping around the rich backdrops takes more than a little concentration.

It's not perfect, and sometimes its swipey controls aren't quite up to the task, but there's still an awful lot to like here.

What dreams may come

You play one of a number of strange looking purple imps who are embroiled in a slightly long-winded story about alternate realms, dreams being stolen, and something called the umbra.

It's all quite silly, but it's presented really well, and you can skip it all if you get bored. That sticks you straight into the meat of the game, which involves flying around, nabbing stuff, and head-butting the bad guys.

Different imps have different styles. One uses magic to trap bad guys in giant hats, another head-butts them, and a third can slow them down with a trail of rear-end expulsions.

You get a choice of a couple of characters on each level, and picking the right one can be the difference between success and failure.

There's a clever combo system at work with the orb-like dreams, and certain spiky enemies will take a life off you if you accidentally barge into them.

Things can get a little bit better

For big moves the one-finger controls work pretty darn well, but they can be a little too imprecise and fiddly when it comes to smaller, and often more important, tweaks in direction.

But if you can get past that little complication, you'll find a game here that's full of heart. It's brilliantly well put together, and has a certain swagger that's very much its own.

Imps in Tokyo

There's a decent beat to Imps in Tokyo that should get you past most of its little problems
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.